AZ: After Hobbs' order on abortion prosecutions, Senate Republicans nix plans to weigh her nominees
Arizona Senate Republicans are retaliating against Gov. Katie Hobbs for her executive order last week that aims to ban county attorneys from prosecuting abortion providers.
The three Republican members of the Senate Committee on Director Nominations — Chairman Jake Hoffman, Sine Kerr and T.J. Shope — sent a letter to Hobbs on Monday saying that they were canceling all further nomination hearings until the Hobbs administration meets with them to discuss what they called her abuse of power.
“You hold the office of Governor in Arizona, not of monarch,” the senators wrote in their letter to Hobbs, calling the executive order a “blatant disregard for separation of powers.”
Hobbs, who campaigned on a pro-choice platform, signed the executive order Thursday. The order is aimed at stopping the state’s 15 county attorneys from prosecuting abortion providers by requiring abortion law violation cases to be referred solely to Attorney General Kris Mayes — a Democrat and staunch advocate for reproductive rights who has joined numerous initiatives to defend abortion access.
“The conspiring of your offices and the Attorney General to circumvent the laws of this state and this country, two executive offices charged with enforcing statute as it stands, give the Legislature tremendous concern about your office’s future attempts to act outside its vested authorities,” the GOP senators wrote in the letter to Hobbs.
https://www.azmirror.com/2023/06/26/after-hobbs-order-on-abortion-prosecutions-senate-republicans-nix-plans-to-weigh-her-nominees/
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